When I was in Norway I met a girl named Solveig, who also pronounced her name SOOL-vay, as mentioned in the comments above. She also gave a slightly different meaning to the name - she said it meant "she who shows the way to the sun".

I know a person with this name. It is pronounced SAHL-vayg (Sawl-vague).

-- Anonymous User 7/7/2009

In Norway 'Solveig' is pronounced /'sol-vei/ with a long 'o'. Claiming that it's pronounced /'sol-vay/ is slightly misleading, as 'vei' and 'vay' are actually pronounced differently - to many English speakers 'vei' might sound like 'vay' or 'vay' might be easier to pronounce than 'vei' but there certainly is a difference. I, as a Norwegian and as a linguist, have no trouble identifying the two different sounds.

In my experience (I used to live in Sweden with my husband who is from there, I speak Swedish and understand Norwegian, been to Norway loads of times and have met and heard of many girls called Solveig, so I would say I'm quite confident in how to say it!), the Norwegian pronunciation is much closer to SOL-vy (rhyming with 'my') than SOL-vay (as in rhyming with 'may'), and using the key on this site I would probably put it as SOOL-vie (which to me makes me think 'vee', but according to the key, 'vie' would be the way to represent the sound - so I guess it's like rhyming with 'pie') - I would say the 'O' sound is a little longer than just 'sol' as well. Just my contribution :) [noted -ed]